Amnesty International on the death of a monk

Amnesty International has released a briefing paper on September's crackdown and the situation since. The Amnesty.org website describes the death of monk U Thilavantha:

U Thilavantha was a respected and much-loved member of his local community. . . He gave English classes to local children. He was around 35 years old.On 25 September, the day after Myitkyina's monks had taken part in peaceful marches calling for an end to restrictions imposed by the military government, U Thilavantha's monastery was raided by police. He was beaten and arrested. Once in detention, he received further beatings.

He died of his injuries the following day. Officials at the local hospital were pressured into declaring that he had suffered a heart attack.

The monastery in which U Thilavantha lived had originally housed 142 monks. On 31 October, only 11 remained..

Comment: This report will be appended to Hidden Crisis section of this website, where Jotman continues to track any and all reports of atrocities occuring in the wake of the crackdown.

Hidden Crisis Update

Blogger Kyi May Kaung attended the special Senate Foreign Relations Sub-committee Hearing on Burma back on 2 October. This blogger's account of the hearing is now online. One line in particular sticks out from her account:

Aung Din, Co-founder of the USCB and a 1988 veteran, updated on how on 25 September 25 alone, a hundred dead bodies were counted at the Rangoon General Hospital.

It would appear that Aung Din first mentioned the "100 bodies" in this letter. I am filing this report under the Hidden Crisis topic. On this website I have sought to track every known report of any massacre happening around the time of the crackdown and after.

TRACKING BURMA'S HIDDEN CRISIS

Hidden Crisis of Burma - Reports Tracking Page
Last update: 23:00 in Bangkok (22:30 in Rangoon) on Sunday 14 October

What is the Hidden Crisis?
The Hidden Crisis in Burma would appear to entail Crimes Against Humanity on a vast scale. Reports concerning this new crisis can be grouped into several categories. 1) They speak to round-ups of civilians and monks, beatings, imprisonment and torture, and the transfer of prisoners to unspecified locations. 2) Other reports concern the denial of medical treatment to the wounded, leading to preventable deaths. 3) There are reports of monks being massacred. 4) There are reports of a large number of "secret cremations."

Why is it a Hidden Crisis?
The term "the hidden campaign" was first used by Rosalind Russell of The Independent. Personally, I prefer the term "Hidden Crisis." It's a fact that the campaign itself -- a massive one waged by the junta against its people -- is largely hidden from view. Few news agencies have correspondents on the ground in Burma. The Internet is blocked, so it's hard for Burmese to blog what's happening (as they did during the protests). But, unless you live in Britain, it's not only the campaign that is hidden; the crisis is also hidden. It's a hidden crisis largely because the gatekeepers of the US media severely discount the validity of reports necessary to telling the story (see here). The Hidden Crisis is unquestionably a bigger story than the September's highly visible protests -- in terms of how it impacts the Burmese. But it's a more challenging story to document, and an even harder one to prove.

We can't help that we don't see the campaign; but if the crisis is invisible -- well, frankly, that's our fault. At Jotman, for the past 10 days, I've taken it as a personal mission to make this campaign less hidden; I have collected and collated reports; at Jotman.com you will find every report concerning the Hidden Crisis I know about. I have explored inconsistencies I found among overlapping reports (see here). I also set up a tracking page, previous to this one, to group monk massacre reports.

As expatriates in Rangoon told the Sunday Times, ". . .the consistency of the stories makes them credible." I am convinced that the story of the Hidden Crisis becomes more coherent and less speculative if you look at the reports not as a series of newspaper stories, or isolated reports, but as a whole. It's time someone brought all these reports together, so we can look at them, side by side, in one place. That's the purpose of this post, of this "tracking jot."

Method of Tracking
For each category, there is a brief description, I tally the number of reports, note the origin of the report (phone call, interview, email, blog, etc), and indicate the sources where such a report was collated or written up. I have also addressed the question of the validity of the reports (beyond the obvious issue that most of these reports have come from anonymous sources). If you are journalist or editor in a position to clarify any these points, I invite you to email me and set the record straight.

I. ROUND-UPS, BEATINGS, TORTURE, IMPRISONMENT
Description: "Harrowing accounts smuggled out of Burma reveal how a systematic campaign of physical punishment and psychological terror is being waged by the Burmese security forces as they take revenge on those suspected of involvement in last month's pro-democracy uprising."
No. of unique reports: numerous
Source of reports: many; various
Reports compiled by:The Independent (Jot) and Guardian (most recently), many sources.
Validity: extremely high
(Note: I am still working on this category, it was too big to tackle last night.)

II. DENIAL OF MEDICAL TREATMENT
Description: Apparently "orders went out to hospitals and clinics not to treat the wounded." Beaten, injured or wounded people taken into custody received no treatment.
This evidence has given rise to grave concern for the well being of elderly monks and very young novices rounded up, by all accounts, with brutality."
No. of unique reports: 2
Source of reports: Western medical expert speaking to respected Burmese doctors, 18-year-old novice monk*,
Reports first compiled by: Sunday Times (Jot), Sydney Morning Herald (Jot)
Validity: High: “We have first-hand evidence from respected Burmese doctors that hospitals and clinics were ordered not to give any treatment to the wounded,” said a foreign medical expert.

III. MASSACRES OF MONKS
Description: There are also reports of monks being killed in mass executions.
No. of unique reports: 3 (plus 1 report of extreme brutality)
Source of reports: interview*, diplomat's source, email to CNN*, phone+blog
Reports first compiled by: Daily Mail (Jot), CNN website (Jot), Jotman (Tracking Jot), Bangkok Post/Sunday Times (Jot)
Validity: Do these reports all refer to different monasteries or the same ones? The BBC interviewed the same defecting Burmese military man as the Daily Mail had, but the BBC report omitted all-important details from the Daily Mail report concerning the alleged massacre. Why? (See this Jot)

IV. SECRET CREMATIONS
Description: "The secret cremations have been reported by local people who have seen olive green trucks covered with tarpaulins rumbling through the area at night and watched smoke rising continuously from the furnace chimneys."
No. of unique reports: many
Source of reports: Burmese - told to diplomats and aid workers.
Reports first compiled by: Sunday Times (Jot)
Validity: Sunday Times journalist expresses confidence in the reports: "Their accounts have been volunteered to international officials and aid workers in Rangoon, Burma’s main city. The consensus in the foreign community is that the consistency of the stories makes them credible."

* Denotes report said to have come from an eyewitness (not secondhand). If vague, no star.

What to do about the Hidden Crisis
It's up to us to pressure the news media to cover this story, lobby governments and international agencies to act, and lend our support to groups positioned to make a difference. This much is certain: if you don't pay attention, nobody else will. The Burmese have nobody else they can turn to. It's up to us.

US Congress playing Turkey while Burma burns

This is unbelievable. We have a series of reports out of Burma of a sinister hidden crackdown by the junta against its people. It's happening now. There are many reports of beatings -- the injured being denied medical treatment, secret cremations, and monks being massacred. It is widely acknowledged that thousands of monks and protestors have simply "gone missing." And we hear that protestors are still being round-up; police and soldiers go door-to-door searching homes for suspected protestors. Privately, an editor at CNN even brought up the "G word" in relation to the situation in Burma: Genocide.

So what is the US Congress doing? They are busy debating a statement about a genocide that is believed to have taken place in Turkey almost 100 years ago. What's more, the debate is stirring up anti-American feelings in Turkey, one of America's closest allies. Obviously, the US needs all the friends it's got in the Middle East because Americans troops are dying in neighbouring Iraq.

There you have it: a real genocide -- one that the US Congress could actually do something about -- may well be happening in Burma at this moment. And what does the US Congress do? It decides to debate one that occurred 100 years ago, angering the Turks.

Congress is voting on the "Armenian genocide resolution" to score points with Armenian voters. The great weakness of US foreign policy has long been that it gets warped by elected representatives' eagerness to cater to the narrow interests of various ethnic constituencies. Sometimes this produces policies that run counter to the national interest of the United States.*

Photos: I took the photo at the top of the page in Northern Burma in 2006. The second photo, which I took in 2002, shows Turkish women in Bursa, an historic town not far from Istanbul. Visiting Turkey even prior to the Iraq war -- which is very unpopular among Turks -- I noted considerable Anti-Americanism. The Turkish people don't want any US Congress telling them about right and wrong. The US has no moral authority in their eyes. It won't make them more open to the question of genocide; in fact, it's almost certain to have to opposite effect. Turks are fed up with the US. They are also angry with racist Europeans who say corruption-ravaged (but Christian) Romania qualifies for EU membership, but not their own country. They see where the Greek part of Cyprus gets to join the EU, but not the Muslim side. Why do politicians in the West -- European and American alike-- act as if they are determined to alienate the people of Turkey? It's just plain stupid.

* The election cycle takes precedence over national interest in the minds of little politicians like House Leader Nancy Pelosi, who stands firmly behind the nonsensical -- and possibly dangerous -- Armenian declaration. At times this unfortunate aspect of the US political system has led to some questionable foreign policy decisions; most commonly cited is US policy towards Israel and Cuba. Catering to Polish voters in Chicago, in the late 90's the US drew the whole of the old Eastern Block into NATO -- an arrogant and assertive move which the awakening Russia bear has certainly not forgotten. Less egregiously, Senator Ted Kennedy, catering to his Boston constituents, was able to change US immigration law to favor the Irish.

"a hidden campaign . . . even more sinister and terrifying than the open crackdown"

Today another highly disturbing report out of Britain, published in the The Independent.

The first-hand accounts describe a campaign hidden from view, but even more sinister and terrifying than the open crackdown in which the regime's soldiers turned their bullets and batons on unarmed demonstrators in the streets of Rangoon, killing at least 13. At least then, the world was watching.

The hidden crackdown is as methodical as it is brutal. First the monks were targeted, then the thousands of ordinary Burmese who joined the demonstrations, those who even applauded or watched, or those merely suspected of anti-government sympathies.

I have been writing about this hidden crackdown for over a week (start here). This is but the latest in a string reports out of Britain that many around the world are not being told about.

"Some of the novice monks were under 10 years old, the youngest was just seven. They were stripped of their robes and given prison sarongs. Some were beaten, leaving open, untreated wounds, but no doctors came."

On his release, the monk spoke to a Western aid worker in Rangoon, who smuggled his testimony and those of other prisoners and witnesses out of Burma on a small memory stick.

Another report:

Mr Kyaw told the aid worker: "The prisoners were let out of the trucks. Even though now they were safe, they were still so scared. They walked with their hands shielding their faces as if they were expecting blows. They were lined up in rows and sat down against the wall, still cowering. Their clothes were dirty, some stained with blood. Our friend had a clean T-shirt on. We were relieved because we thought this meant that he had not been beaten. We were wrong. He had been beaten on the head and the blood had soaked his shirt which he carried in a plastic bag."

This strongly reinforces the point I made in the previous post:

The scale of the crackdown remains undocumented. The regime has banned journalists from entering Burma and has blocked Internet access and phone lines.

Mark Farmaner of the Burma Campaign UK says the number of dead is possibly in the hundreds. "The regime covers up its atrocities. We will never know the true numbers," he said.

At the weekend the government said it has released more than half of the 2,171 people arrested, but exile groups estimate the number of detentions between 6,000 and 10,000.

In Rangoon, people say they are more frightened now than when soldiers were shooting on the streets.

"When there were demonstrations and soldiers on the streets, the world was watching," said a professional woman who watched the marchers from her office.

"But now the soldiers only come at night. They take anyone they can identify from their videos. People who clapped, who offered water to the monks, who knelt and prayed as they passed. People who happened to turn and watch as they passed by and their faces were caught on film. It is now we are most fearful. It is now we need the world to help us."

For my reflections on this last quotation, see my next post (here).

How Asean will defend it's "do nothing" approach to Burma

An informative piece in Singapore's Straights Times suggests how Asean leaders will try to talk themselves out of taking tough action against Burma:

It might come as cold comfort, but if it had not been for Burma's membership of Asean (Association of South- east Asian Nations) and five years of what the organisation calls "constructive engagement", the bloodshed in last month's monk-led protests could have been a lot worse.

Self-serving or not, Asean secretary-general Ong Keng Yong's assertion may hold some water. During the 1988 uprising in Burma, troops killed at least 3,000 protesters. This time the body count is anywhere between 13 and 130, with indications that, for all its brutality, Burma's military regime did hold back somewhat.

"We believe they did act with a certain restraint," Ong told The Straits Times. "They see a certain usefulness in Asean. They don't want to just walk away from the table. The situation could be a lot worse. They could be outside the membership and not give a damn about the rest of South-east Asia."

The real test, however, will come at the Nov 19-21 Asean summit in Singapore, when its leaders will have to deal with the perfect diplomatic storm - the crisis in Burma itself and a new charter giving the organisation the authority to expel a member for a breach of principles.

It's a highly informative article. Nevertheless, I think journalists have no business declaring the body count in Burma "is anywhere between 13 and 130" when the true figure could well be many times higher than 130.

I would refer journalists and Asean officials to this post. It summarizes -- and sources -- the big unknowns: reports of secret cremations, the massacre of monks, and the question as to whether Burma's hospitals had been ordered not to treat the wounded. Frankly, there are too many such reports from too many sources for anyone outside the Burmese junta to say they know how many died with such specificity. It's simply not possible to know the number of dead at this time. So let's stop pretending that any of the numbers we have are meaningful.

What we don't know about the extent of the crackdown in Burma far exceeds the extent of knowledge of the crackdown. There is still no working Internet in Burma! How many international news agencies even have correspondents in Rangoon?

The Asean leader's assertion of confidence in the regime and in the moderating impact of Burma's Asean membership is based on highly spurious figures that the world press has taken far too seriously. Journalists and politicians should not assume published figures of dead or missing Burmese present a valid reflection of the full scope of the terrible reality of what has happened and is presently occurring in Burma.

Because they do not.

US media: asleep at the wheel on Burma

The Burmese junta garnered at least one favorable headline out of the US media today: "Myanmar Reaches out to Dissident" proclaimed the NY Times. I suppose that headline wouldn't have sounded quite so lame if the paper did not persist in calling Burma by the name given to it by the junta.

If only the main problem with the US media's recent coverage of Burma was as superficial as what name it gives to Burma. Where is the reporting? Most of the probing reports coming out of Burma lately have been spearheaded by the British papers. Pick up a US paper and you find scarcely a hint of the deeply troubling reports coming out of Burma. No, the provocative reports don't come from "eminently quotable sources" -- i.e. junta officials -- they are based on stories told by monks, fugitive military men, and scared people on the streets -- none of whom will give their name to a newspaper for fear of reprisal.

Frankly, there are too many of these anecdotal reports for there not to be a genuine story here. The Sunday Times even acknowledged so much yesterday.

The NY Times thinks it is reporting the news when it parlays the junta's latest press release, and crowns it off with a sucky headline like "Myanmar Reaches out to Dissident." If any NY Times editors are reading Jotman tonight, FYI here's the story:

• medical care denied to injured protestors. (SMH and Sunday Times)
  
• secret cremations in Rangoon last week. (Sunday Times)
  
• various reports continue to surface that monks were massacred. (see here)
  

The context that lends a sense of dire urgency to these reports is the fact that Burmese are reported being round-up, arrested, and sent to God Knows Where.

I think Americans should be allowed to read such reports in the New York Times -- even if they have not yet been proven. Why? Because the people of Burma may be in a race against the clock. The lives of thousands of imprisoned protestors may be on the line. Moreover, the reports on which these allegation are based speak of a junta that is not merely brutal, but on par with the Nazis.

If any one of these allegations holds, your whole view of the Burmese regime inexorably shifts.

The Wayne Madsen Report is suggesting the US news media may be trying to sanitize the news out of Burma so Chevron and the oil companies can get back to business ("Corporate media, kow-towing to Chevron, which has interests in Burma, downplaying massacre") When I first read that, I thought: well that's a stretch. Personally, I'm weary of conspiracy theories; my tendency here is to believe the US media is out of touch, with too few correspondents on the ground.

But on second thought . . . It seems to me one can make a certain kind of pragmatic argument in favor of doing business with a brutal dictator -- especially if China is already in on the act, but doing business with a Nazi is a different matter entirely.

Think about it: not only did the Burmese junta order its troops to open fire on peaceful monks and protestors, but it also may have ordered and enforced the denial of medical care to the injured. What kind of brutal dictatorship issues the second order? And if this second command was issued to Burma's hospitals, is it such a stretch to believe General Hla Win just might have been speaking the truth when he said orders had been given to round up and massacre monks?

Yes Chevron, you do have a problem. And New York Times: considering the actual situation on the ground in Burma, your headline was not merely lame, it was offensive.

Burmese junta prohibited the treatment of the wounded

Some journalists from Australia's Sydney Morning Herald just returned from Rangoon. They report on some of the extreme conditions monks were forced to endure. This Australian story backs up yesterday's report in the Sunday Times that suggested injured protestors have been systematically refused medical treatment.

The treatment that has angered the monks includes lack of medical care, lack of sanitation, brutality in detention and disrespect for the Buddhist robes.

In seven days of detention, monks and civilians who were injured during the fighting received no medical attention, the young monk said.

"One monk from Nywe Kyar Yan monastery, you could see the bone in his arm but they never treated it," he said.

Another monk who had hurt an eye in fighting had now lost it. Three civilians who did not receive medical attention died at the technical institute, the young monk said.

The article continues:

The prisoners were given one meal a day, a small amount of water and no toilet facilities over seven days.

He estimated there were at least 1000 monks in the area where he was detained, most from Nywe Kyar Yan and other Rangoon monasteries, but he believed other areas on the campus were also being used to house more prisoners.

"After a week, some monks were very weak; their hands were trembling," the monk said.

The Herald reporters also noted that monks had been ordered to disrobe and put on ordinary civilian clothes.

Comment: The junta would appear to have issued orders prohibiting the treatment of the wounded. If so, the moral depravity of the men in charge of Burma is truly incomprehensible.

Extermination and account-keeping in Burma

The Sunday Times story about secret cremations in Burma (see the next post) also looks at the question of accounting. It's observations speak to a meticulous bureaucratic efficiency that evokes Nazi Germany:

It is now clear that the regime was techno-savvy, patient and thorough. It kept the Internet open long enough to allow its own cyber-operatives to down-load the images and recordings of street protests to identify the protesters. The Internet is now shut down.

Every Burmese street has a block registration with photographs of each resident on the wall of the local administration office,” said an international aid official, whose agency used the system to help track recipients of aid. Burmese have given accounts of soldiers and plain-clothes men arriving to make arrests with computer-generated photographs of their targets pulled off the Internet.

Actually, this brings to mind my journey into Northern Burma where I had an opportunity to observe the amount of red-tape getting on an intercity bus entails. In an account entitled "The Ghost on the Bus," I wrote:

Before we had boarded the bus, local passengers had submitted state-issued identity cards; station clerks then hand-printed passenger information onto a roster that got faxed somewhere. (In my case, before boarding, a messenger actually had to be dispatched to immigration to get travel documents copied and my passbook stamped). Before arriving in Keng Tong, the bus attendant handed the ID cards back to passengers. As he called out names, he made up jokes – taking care to mock especially funny-sounding names. Most passengers thought his routine hilarious, though a few victims did not look amused.

I can't imagine hearing so much laughter on the bus these days. At the time I was astounded by just how meticulous the officials from the bus company were about a country bus list. It's easy to imagine the same thoroughness now being applied to identifying protestors.

Secret cremations

Britain's Sunday Times has just published one of the most important articles in recent days about the situation in Burma.

The big question Jotman pursued last week was whether mass murders occurred during or in the aftermath of the crackdown. I am tracking these reports here. The Sunday Times now weighs in on the issue, investigating reports of secret cremations:

THE Burmese army has burnt an undetermined number of bodies at a crematorium sealed off by armed guards northeast of Rangoon over the past seven days, ensuring that the exact death toll in the recent pro-democracy protests will never be known.

The secret cremations have been reported by local people who have seen olive green trucks covered with tarpaulins rumbling through the area at night and watched smoke rising continuously from the furnace chimneys.

They say they have watched soldiers in steel helmets blocking off roads to the municipal crematorium and threatening people who poke their heads out of windows overlooking the roads after the 10pm curfew.

Their accounts have been volunteered to international officials and aid workers in Rangoon, Burma’s main city. The consensus in the foreign community is that the consistency of the stories makes them credible.

“There has been no attempt to identify the dead, to return the bodies to their families or to give them even the minimum Buddhist religious rites,” said a foreign official who has collated information on the toll of dead and injured from a wide variety of sources.

Horrifying rumours are sweeping the city that some of those cremated were severely injured people thrust into the ovens alive, but these have been treated with extreme caution by independent observers and have not been verified.

However, it is widely accepted that the cremations began on the night of Friday, September 28, more than 24 hours after soldiers opened fire on unarmed Buddhist monks and civilians demonstrating on the streets of Rangoon.

They have continued at intervals right up to the end of last week, according to local people. Taxi drivers refused to take a foreigner to the area, saying they were too frightened and that the army moved bodies after the shoot-on-sight curfew.

The Chinese army carried out a similar practice of anonymous cremations in Beijing after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when many unidentified bodies were disposed of at the city’s Babaoshan crematorium. The true number of dead has never been established.

A more disturbing aspect of the Burmese regime’s conduct is the apparently continuous stream of deaths days after the guns fell silent.

“We have first-hand evidence from respected Burmese doctors that hospitals and clinics were ordered not to give any treatment to the wounded,” said a foreign medical expert, “so it’s not possible to assess the victims by those treated in public hospitals.

“We do know that some injured people were treated in hiding in people’s homes. We assume that beaten, injured or wounded people taken into custody have got no treatment and may have died.”

This evidence has given rise to grave concern for the wellbeing of elderly monks and very young novices rounded up, by all accounts, with brutality.

There has been a drumbeat of allegations that soldiers and militiamen unleashed crazed violence against these holy men when they crashed into monasteries in the small hours of the night over the past week. Blood-stained robes, shattered statues and defaced holy pictures have been caught on digital images smuggled out of the country.

Some of the worst violence appears to have occurred at the Mwe Kya Jan monastery in northwest Rangoon. According to graphic testimony published in yesterday’s Thai newspapers, the soldiers lined the monks up against a wall and smashed each of their shaven heads against the wall in succession. The monks were roughed up and thrown into trucks, but the abbot was so severely beaten that he died on the spot, the reports claimed.

I must say that I disagree with the observation by the Sunday Times that the fact of secret cremations ensures "that the exact death toll in the recent pro-democracy protests will never be known." There's almost certainly a paper trail. Because this is a regime that keeps meticulous records of the movements of people. And that will be the subject of my next post.

Genocide in Burma?

On CNN's "In the field" page -- where you can find a video of protestors getting beaten by troops -- correspondent Dan Rivers addresses a question that's been on my mind:

. . . But what depresses me most is seeing those protesters loaded quietly into the trucks. . . Where were they taken? What happened next? If the soldiers were willing to beat them in public, what would they do behind a prison wall?

And now the “G” word has made its first appearance in the deluge of e-mails I am receiving about Myanmar. It was not from a hysterical activist, but from a senior editor in CNN, wondering if genocide is now under way in Myanmar. The terrible thought, had been sparked by an upsetting e-mail from a monk, claiming to have witnessed hundreds of monks being beaten to death at a monastery. Genocide is defined as the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, religious or national group. It's the sort of definition that is pedantically debated in the U.N., while people are slaughtered in the world's trouble-spots.

Myanmar's Buddhist monks are now noticeably absent from the streets. Worried residents have contacted us saying the monks have all but disappeared in some parts of Yangon. Some are concerned they are being massacred, away from the camera-phones and bloggers who have kept the world informed about what’s going on. It’s a claim that, at present, is impossible to prove; impossible to believe even . . .

Impossible to prove, yes. Impossible to believe? Not any longer. A few days ago Jotman began tracking accounts of a monk massacres on this page. They are adding up.

Are mass killings taking place in Burma?

"Where have all the monks gone?" asked the US Ambassador to Rangoon today. We have reports of monk round-ups; reports of monks being sent off to far away detention centres. There are also reports of monks being killed in mass executions. This issue is of the greatest concern, and we should address it as carefully as possible. Did such killings take place? Did the Myanmar junta issue directives to exterminate monks?

The defecting general says he refused to take part in a plan to kill "several hundred monks." He also indicated quite clearly that orders had been issued to this effect:

"I knew the plan to beat and shoot the monks and if I stayed on, I would have to follow these orders. "

Sophie Lwin wrote on her Facebook page, "We just got phone call with our sister living in Yangon about a few hours ago. We saw on BBC world, saying that 200 monks were arrested. The true picture is far worse!!!!!!!!!" She continues:

For one instance, the monastery at an obscure neighborhood of Yangon, called Ngwe Kyar Yan (on Wei-za-yan-tar Road, Yangon) had been raided early this morning.A troop of lone-tein (riot police comprised of paid thugs) protected by the military trucks, raided the monastery with 200 studying monks. They systematically ordered all the monks to line up and banged and crushed each one's head against the brick wall of the monastery. One by one, the peaceful, non resisting monks, fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Then, they tore off the red robes and threw them all in the military trucks (like rice bags) and took the bodies away. . . .

When all is done, only 10 out of 200 remained alive, hiding in the monastery. Blood stained everywhere on the walls and floors of the monastery.

Lwin's sister's account is very detailed, which suggests to me it's not just rumor being repeated. So we have two reports, neither by any measure confirmed, but eerily similar. I'll post any others I come across.

One other point: note Lwin was objecting to the extreme understatement of a BBC account of events. Scroll down to the next post and you will read how the defecting general's comments were toned-down in the BBC's account as well. What's going on here with the BBC?

The Daily Mail article seems to point to a 3rd reported masscre of monks (assuming it is not a different version of either of the above incidents). Swedish diplomat Liselotte Agerlid is quoted as saying:

"People are scared and the general assessment is that the fight is over. We were informed from one of the largest embassies in Burma that 40 monks in the Insein prison were beaten to death today and subsequently burned."

So there we have it: Three reports detailing the mass executions of monks. One report that the junta has ordered the extermination of prisoners. And many reports that monks have "disappeared" or are being moved to far away concentration camps. Put the reports together and you have a nightmare scenerio occuring in Burma at this moment.

Update 1 (10/05/07): CNN has received "an upsetting e-mail from a monk, claiming to have witnessed hundreds of monks being beaten to death at a monastery." That makes four reports.

Update 2 (10/08/07): "Some of the worst violence appears to have occurred at the Mwe Kya Jan monastery in northwest Rangoon. According to graphic testimony published in yesterday’s Thai newspapers, the soldiers lined the monks up against a wall and smashed each of their shaven heads against the wall in succession. The monks were roughed up and thrown into trucks, but the abbot was so severely beaten that he died on the spot, the reports claimed." (Sunday Times).

Defecting General Hla Win's Story to the BBC

Hla Win, described as a Burmese general who has deserted his post in protest of the regime’s harsh tactics, described horrific scenes from Burma to the Daily Mail newspaper. Tonight the BBC interviewed the same general (I think) but the BBC report omitted all-important details from the Daily Mail report. It also omitted his name.

The BBC's report is entirely colourless:

The officer, whose unit was ordered to Rangoon to deal with the protests, said he did not want to beat or shoot monks - who are revered in Burmese society.

"I knew the plan to beat and shoot the monks and if I stayed on, I would have to follow these orders. Because I'm a Buddhist, I did not want to kill the monks," he said.

I presume this is the same individual interviewed by the Daily Mail. In that interview one General Hla Win is reported to have said:

“I decided to desert when I was ordered to raid two monasteries and force several hundred monks onto trucks.

“They were to be killed and their bodies dumped deep inside the jungle. I refused to participate in this.”

Hla Win also reportedly told the Daily Mail that "the bodies number in the thousands." Again, no mention of this figure on the BBC. We can be quite sure both news organizations interviewed the same man. BBC reports, "A Burmese army officer, who fled to Thailand in the first apparent defection since the crackdown, has been giving interviews to media organisations."

Why Burma's Monks Are in Danger

When the protests began, most people -- myself included -- thought that Burmese soldiers would not dare to fire upon Buddhist monks.

Yet, recent reports indicate that monks have been beaten and killed. How could this happen in Burma of all places; in what is perhaps the most devoutly Buddhist country on earth?

Here's the explanation I've been able to piece together after talking to some friends in Thailand.

The junta has indoctrinated soldiers in the belief that monks who protest are not true monks. It has told soldiers that the protesting monks are in effect, fake or impostor monks. "Real monks do not protest," goes the junta's line. So when the soldier beats or kills a monk, he thinks he's purifying the land of the false monks.

The junta has gone to great lengths in recent years to align itself with Buddhism. The junta's Buddhism is presented to the people -- and especially the army -- as the true Buddhism. That has made it easier for the regime to now claim the protesting monks are apostates.

Of course, the idea that a monk cannot protest and still remain true to Buddhism and his vows is utter nonsense. None other than the Dalai Lama issued a strong statement in support of Burma's protesting monks.

Burma on Oct 3: Soldiers hunting protestors.

-Soldiers announced they were hunting pro-democracy protesters in Burma's largest city Wednesday and the top US diplomat in the country said she heard that military police were pulling people out of their homes during the night.(AP)

- U.S. embassy personnel have found some Buddhist monasteries completely deserted while others were closed off by soldiers. The acting U.S. ambassador found the absence of the leaders of last month’s demonstrations conspicuous: “There is a significantly reduced number of monks on the streets. Where are the monks? What has happened to them?” (AP)

-Burma's military authorities have released 80 monks who were rounded up last week in the Rangoon crackdown (Reuters via Irrawaddy)

- Unconfirmed reports that police units in the southern areas of Yangon and in the east of the country are planning to revolt (poster at Ko Htike)

Updates on Earlier Events
-Over 10,000 people in the Arakan town of Man Aung staged another protest yesterday against the Burmese government's harassment of demonstrators.

- Authorities yesterday released 90 of 400 monks detained in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state, during a midnight raid on monasteries on Sept. 25. (DVB)

Wake Up to the Gravity of the Situation in Burma

The world seems to be losing interest in Burma. This presents a bit of a problem for the Burmese. Here's why:

1. Monks and civilian protestors are presently being round up and sent to concentration camps.
2. We have a report from a defecting Burmese general that the junta issued orders to execute prisoners.
3. We have at least one report of the mass murder of monks in a monastery.
4. Three hundred thousand of Burma's 400,000 monks are said to have taken part in the protests.

It is entirely possible -- I would even say quite probable -- that a Holocaust is ongoing in Burma at this moment. I can't prove it. But just put the accounts compiled here at Jotman.com together -- some of which have yet to be widely reported in the mainstream media. The reports in question have been labeled "unconfirmed."

Silence and denial is typical in these circumstances: Germany, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Sudan -- the world never wakes up to the horror of a Holocaust until it is too late. Why is this? Early "unconfirmed" reports leak out every time. Perhaps we don't want to take those early reports seriously, because early reports put us in an awkward position. Because it's not yet too late for us to do something. We know that we could stop the horror if we chose to.

The strategic vulnerability of the Burmese leadership is strikingly apparent. It's hunkered down in a remote town it built for itself in the middle of the jungle called Napyiydaw. It would appear an easy target.

The world should speak to Burma's brutal generals in the language of brutal generals. That language isn't Chinese, and it's not UN-speak either. Now -- before it is too late -- the world must send a clear message to Burma's leaders: exterminate your people and face your own destruction.

What about China? China would not be happy to hear this kind of talk, of course. But Burma does not belong to China. It belongs to the Burmese. And China is not the all-powerful USSR. Basically, China would have to live with the consequences of having supported a brutal and unpopular regime for too long.

For those who would execute the Napyiydaw Option, the idea makes a certain amount of sense in cold geopolitical terms. If only the world was a larger place than the Middle East in their small minds.

The time has come to talk openly about the Napyiydaw Option (see post). How can we live with ourselves if we don't?

4,000 Buddhist Monks to be Sent to Concentration Camp

The BBC reports,

Thousands of monks detained in Burma's main city of Rangoon will be sent to prisons in the far north of the country, sources have told the BBC. . .

About 4,000 monks have been rounded up in the past week as the military government has tried to stamp out pro-democracy protests. . .

They are being held at a disused race course and a technical college.

Sources from a government-sponsored militia said they would soon be moved away from Rangoon.

The monks have been disrobed and shackled, the sources told BBC radio's Burmese service. There are reports that the monks are refusing to eat.

Others reports indicate that rounded-up monks are being slaughtered. Scroll down.

The Killing Fields of Burma: Crisis Enters New Phase

Britain's Daily Mail recently published the account of a defecting Burmese general who says "the bodies number in the thousands." Diplomatic sources report killing fields: Buddhist monks in concentration camps, beaten, slaughtered, bodies dumped in rivers. The true colors of Burma's junta may be exposed for all the world to see. The junta is akin to Nazis or the Khmer Rouge. The crisis in Burma has entered a new phase.

The first priority must be to carry on the spirit of Burma's peaceful protests abroad. In this regard, our efforts should target China. We must do what is necessary to prevent China from offering further support to its murderous ally. China is well integrated into the global economy; it is vulnerable to outside pressure.

• Sign this petition.
  - petition described further here.
• Join a protest at the nearest consulate or embassy of the People's Republic of China.
• We need some creative ideas here. I've just opened comments.
  

Because China doesn't want the outside world to interfere in the affairs of its ally, talk of outside interference in Burma's affairs should top the international agenda. This is a tactic to make China listen, and make the regime take the world seriously. No reasonable option should be off the table. The more viable options for interference the outside world seriously discusses, the more pressure this puts on China and its ally, the Burmese junta. Viable options may or may not include:

• Support for rebel groups who are already fighting the Burmese junta.
• The Naypyidaw Option.
• Other ideas?
  

Massacre in Burma: ". . . the bodies can be counted in the several thousand."

Time in Bangkok 23:50 (23:20 in Rangoon, 12:50 in NY City, 17:50 in London)

Mike Nizza wrote on his blog at 9:50 NY time:

Now comes an unconfirmed report in The Daily Mail in Britain with a staggering claim of mass slaughter. The paper quotes Hla Win, described as a Burmese general who has deserted his post in protest of the regime’s harsh tactics.

“Many more people have been killed in recent days than you’ve heard about,” Hla Win said. “The bodies can be counted in several thousand.”

Here is some additional detail from General Win, referred to in this passage by his title:

The 42-year-old chief of military intelligence in Rangoon’s northern region added: “I decided to desert when I was ordered to raid two monasteries and force several hundred monks onto trucks.

“They were to be killed and their bodies dumped deep inside the jungle. I refused to participate in this.”

The general is seeking political asylum in Norway, according to The Norway Post. A Norwegian freelance journalist told The Post that he met with General Win in a jungle hideout near the border with Thailand.

Here is the link to the Daily Mail article which went online at 15:04 in London (almost 3 hours ago). I'm reading it now. I am at a loss for words.

Reports from exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply "disappeared" as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians. Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells. There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.

And another:

There are extremely high numbers of soldiers in Rangoon's streets," she added. "Anyone can see it is absolutely impossible for any demonstration to gather, or for anyone to do anything. "People are scared and the general assessment is that the fight is over. We were informed from one of the largest embassies in Burma that 40 monks in the Insein prison were beaten to death today and subsequently burned."

The diplomat also said that three monasteries were raided yesterday afternoon and are now totally abandoned. At his border hideout last night, 42-year-old Mr Win said he hopes to cross into Thailand and seek asylum at the Norwegian Embassy. . .

A Swedish diplomat who visited Burma during the protests said last night that in her opinion the revolution has failed. Liselotte Agerlid, who is now in Thailand, said that Burmese people now face possibly decades of repression.

"The Burma revolt is over," she added. "The military regime won and a new generation has been violently repressed and violently denied democracy. The people in the street were young people, monks and civilians who were not participating during the 1988 revolt. "

"Now the military has cracked down the revolt, and the result may very well be that the regime will enjoy another 20 years of silence, ruling by fear."

This vision of Burma's future is not acceptable. Not if the reports of killing fields are confirmed. I say the hour has arrived for the civilized world to take stock of all its options in dealing with murderous junta of Burma.